Angara asked to spare socialized housing from tax

A consumer and commuter’s group on Saturday appealed President Rodrigo Duterte and Senator Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara to not to remove the tax relief for socialized housing.

In the weekly forum at the Kapihan sa Annabels, United Filipino Consumers and Commuters (UFCC) president Rodolfo Javellana said that if Angara’s proposal to remove the tax relief for socialized housing is passed by Congress and signed into law by President Duterte, the senator’s reelection could suffer from the backlash of taxpayers, particularly the poor, he said.

“Senator, please do not deprive us of our dream to own a decent housing,” he added.

Angara’s measure proposes to tax the purchase of a low-cost and socialized house worth P450,000.

Under Republic Act 7279 or the Urban Housing and Development Act of 1992, the 12-percent value-added tax only applies to the purchase of a housing unit worth P3.2 million and above.

According to UFCC, Angara’s tax reform plan would burden people, including overseas Filipino workers who could afford to buy only low-cost and socialized housing units worth P450,000.

“If I were him, he must not push for the insertion to scrap the housing tax relief,” Javellana said.
“Spare housing from tax,” he said.

“Sadly, it will be our members who account for 60 percent of the buyers of mass housing projects, and that their families, who are barely able to scrape enough income for their monthly Pag-IBIG [Home Mutual Development Fund] amortizations, will bear the brunt of the tax imposition,” Javellana added.